Chapter 1: Introduction to Analog

and Digital Communications

January 2024
Lectured by
Prof. Dr. Thuong Le-Tien
Cell: 0903 787 989
Email: [email protected]

Slides with references from HUT Finland, La Hore uni.,

Mc. Graw Hill Co., and A.B. Carlson’s Communication Systems,

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Communications
 Communications = Information Conveying

 Telecommunications = Communications in
most current aspects
 The course is about communications based
on signal concepts in electrical engineering
 Limited to information in electrical forms
 Primarily cover information transfer at signals and
systems levels
 little deal with circuits, chips, signal processing,
microprocessors, protocols, and networks

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What exactly is information.
 Information is a word that is too
generic for different purposes
 use the word “message”
 A physical manifestation of information
 What do communication systems have
to do with messages or informations
 Communication systems are responsible for
producing an “acceptable” replica of
message/information at the destination
acceptable replica tái tạo tín hiệu giống cái gửi di ,
Phiên bản thông tin tùy vào yêu cầu nghiêm ngặt lỗi bit,...

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 Classify signals
 Messages or in term of signals can be classified in various ways:
Periodic/non-periodic; Deterministic/random; Energy/power;
the most common one in Communication Systems can deal with
analog/digital groups
 Analog
 A physical quantity that varies with “time”, usually in a
smooth or continuous fashion
 Fidelity describes how close is the received signal to the
original signal. Fidelity defines acceptability
 Digital
 An ordered sequence of symbols selected from a finite set
of discrete elements
 When digital signals are sent through a communication
system, degree of accuracy within a given time defines the
acceptability

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Examples for basic definitions
 Analog Signals
 Values are taken from an
infinite set
t

 Digital Signals
 Values are taken from a
discrete set
t
 Binary Signals 1 1 1
 Digital signals with just
two discrete values 0 0 0 0

t
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Elements of Communication Systems
n( t ) 
m( t ) (Modulator)
s( t )
m (t )
Analog h( t ) Demodulator
or Digital

Transmitter Channel Receiver

*Modulati *Attenuation *Detection (Demod+Decod)
on *Noise nhiễu cộng vào biên độ *Filtering (Equalization)
*Coding *Distortion
*Interference nhiễu tần số
*Fading
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 Transmitter
 What does modulation do:
 Modulate messages (analog) or Encode bits
(digital) into amplitude, frequency, or phase
of a carrier signal.
 Also makes transmitted signal robust against
channel impairments (Noise, Interferences,
Fading, Distortions, etc.)
fading nhiễu đa đường tín hiệu bị phản xạ

 Coding in digital communication systems

 Source coding – remove redundancy
 Channel coding – add redundancy, lower BER
 Encryption Coding – hide information
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 MODULATIONS

Analog Digital
Modulation Modulation

AM PM Analog Carrier- Analog Signal-

FM
Digital Signal Digital Carrier
sóng mang analog tín hiệu số

P
AS FS PS QA PC D PP
AM-C DSB SSB VSB W
K K K M M M M
M
DSB: douple side band QAM quadrature AM
SSB: single side band
VSB: Vestigial Sideband
AM đầy đủ 8
Example about Modulations

(c)
(a) Modulating Signal; (b) Sinusoidal carrier with amplitude modulation
(c) Pulse-train carrier with amplitude modulation
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 Channels
 Channel introduces impairments
 Noise

 Thermal noise is the most significant

 Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN)

 Distortion

 Inter-symbol interference (ISI)

 Attenuation and fading

 Constant attenuation

 Variable attenuation

 Interference

 Crosstalk
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 Receiver
 What does Demodulation/Detection do:
 Extracts messages (analog systems) or bits (digital

systems) from the received signal

 Mitigates channel impairments by making use of

equalizers for both Analog and Digital Communications

 Decodes the signal, especially if channel coding was

performed at the transmitter

(a) Transmitted signal

(b) Effects of distortion
(c) Effects of interference
(d) Effects of noise

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Fundamental Limitations
 If practical implementation is not a concern and we
don’t worry about feasibility, is there something else
that limits acceptable communications?
 Bandwidth
 Channel must be able to allow signals to pass
through
 Channels usually have limited bandwidths

 Can we reduce signal bandwidths: By pre-processing

at source (reduce redundancy, compression, etc.)
 Noise
 Can be reduce it by - Filters

 Can be reduce its effects? - Equalizers

bộ cân bằng

 Signal processing at the transmitter and receiver

 Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR): Match Filters

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Performance Criterion
 How a “good” communication system can be
differentiated from a “sloppy” one?
 For analog communications

 How close is m (t ) to m ( t ): Fidelity!

 SNR is typically used as a performance metric

 For digital communications

 Data rate and probability of error (BER)

 SNR as well

 No channel impairments  no errors

 With noise, error probability/SNR depend upon

data rate, signal and noise powers, modulation
scheme, etc.
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Limits on data rates
 Shannon obtained formulas that provide
fundamental limits on data rates (1948)
 Without channel impairments, an infinite data
rate is achievable with probability of error
approaching zero
 For bandlimited AWGN channels, the
“capacity” of a channel is:

C = B log2(1+SNR) = 3.32B log10(1+SNR) Bits/second

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 MODULATION FOR MULTIPLEXING
Multiplexing is the process of combining several
signals for simultaneous transmission on a channel.
Three major groups of Multiplexing techniques.
•Frequency–Division Multiplexing, FDM, uses CW
modulation to put each signal on a different carrier
frequency.
•Time-Division Multiplexing, TDM, uses pulse
modulation to put Samples of different signals in
nonoverlapping time slots
•Code-Division Multiple Access, CDMA, assigns a
unique code to each Digital (cellular) user
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Electromagnetic wave propagation over
wireless channels
Line of Sight and Sky
wave propagations

E and F layers of Ionosphere

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Multipath interference caused by a signal being reflected
off the terrain and a building

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Example: PSTN, ADSL
 Public Switched Telephone Network, (PSTN)
 Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
 Components
 Phone set (analog signal is generated), MODEM
 Local exchange (A/D conversion)
 Long-haul exchange
 Characteristics
 Circuit-switched network
 Designed for voice communications and Internet
 Faxes and modems use PSTN for transmission of
digital data in analog form
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Example: PSTN
Long distance line International
Local exchange International line
exchange

Long distance
Local line exchange
Long distance
Long distance line users

Local
exchange

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ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

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Example: Cellular phones

PSTN
MTSO

MTSO

MTSO: Mobile Telephone

Switching Office

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Example: Cellular
 Cellular Communication System
 A cell is assigned some number of channels
 Typically one channel is allocated to a user
 Users communicate with a base station
 Base station is connected to MTSO/PSTN
 AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System, 1st
generation) is an analog system, uses FM and
frequency-division multiple access
 Digital systems use digital modulations, D-AMPS
(2nd generation); GSM (2nd genration up); CDMA
(3rd generation up)

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 Standard phones: using Circuit Switching

Internet phones: Voice over IP using packet switching

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Example: Radio broadcasts
 Two popular modes are used in analog
broadcasting communication systems
 AM
 Amplitude modulation
 600-1600kHz (MW), 1600kHz-22MHz (SW)
 10kHz channels
 FM
 Frequency modulation
 88-108MHz (FCC)
 Channels centered at 200kHz intervals starting at
88.1MHz

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 Software radio receiver

Software radio receiver implemented FPGA

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Example: Wireless LANs
 Various standards
 IEEE 802.11a/b/g popular
 IEEE 802.11b
 11Mb/s data rate
 2.4-2.4835GHz band
 Modulation: Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS),
Frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS)
 IEEE 802.11a
 55Mb/s data rate
 5.725-5.825GHz band (in U.S.)
 Uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)

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Example: LANs and WANs
 Local Area Networks (LANs)
 Connect “closely” located computers
 Data bits are transmitted in chunks (packets) for
efficiency/feasibility reasons
 Various LAN protocols are used in practice
 Wide Area Networks (WANs)
 A wide area backbone network connects different
LANs
 A standard protocol is needed for such
communication (TCP/IP)

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Example: Ad Hoc Networks
 Various devices connected to each other
without using an infrastructure
 Sensor Networks
 Similar to ad hoc Networks (may be considered a special
case of ad hoc networks)
 Have power constraints (Use non-rechargeable battery)
 Mesh Networks
 Another example of ad hoc networks
 Used for provide communications to remote areas

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Media and Signal Spectra

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